


we’re only human, after all

by orphan_account



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: AU after Party Guessed, Alternate Ending, Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-03
Updated: 2012-08-05
Packaged: 2017-11-11 07:57:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,115
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/476315
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"...It felt as though he was looking at everything with a damp cloth over his face, unable to breathe in the scents of the world or see the colours of it beyond a dull blur."</p><p>Alternate ending to Party Guessed, AU after that point. What if Peter's uprising had more consequences for Derek-- humanizing consequences?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The truth is waiting to be found

**Author's Note:**

> Unbeta'd, all mistakes are my own. (Letting me know if you spot any would be greatly appreciated!) Chapter titles from Ellie Goulding's "Human."

Derek came into awareness slowly. He could hear a voice calling his name long before he could put a name to the voice, felt the slap across his cheek long before he could open his eyes. His eyelids were too heavy to lift; his arms felt like lead bars. 

“Come on, Derek, wake up. I can’t actually drag you anywhere, you’re like a billion pounds of pure muscle. Believe me, I had to hold you up for two hours, I know what I’m talking about.” 

Derek recognized both the voice and the tone; Stiles was panicking. There was something wrong about his panic, something Derek was missing... the smell. Derek couldn’t smell Stiles’ panic, couldn’t taste the acrid tang of fear that usually accompanied it.

Stiles was shaking his shoulders fairly vigorously when Derek managed to slit his eyes open. He inhaled deeply through his nose as Stiles continued to babble, but there was nothing. Well, not _nothing_. The dull smell of ash and rotting wood surrounded him as always, but the smells of his family— the lingering traces of their presence in the shell of the Hale house— were gone, as was the distinctive smell that had always enveloped Stiles like a blanket.

“—and will you please explain the gaping hole in the floor? Because that totally wasn’t here the last time I paid you a visit, and seriously dude, why aren’t you doing your glare-y ‘I’m the Alpha’ routine yet?” 

Derek blinked at his companion slowly, almost uncomprehending. “Everything’s—” _Wrong. Colourless. Numb. Dead._

“Everything’s what?” Stiles prompted hurriedly, leaning closer to Derek to catch his quiet words. “What’s going on?” 

“—different.” He coughed, and the motion wracked him with pain. “Something’s wrong. Peter—”

“Your Uncle? What’s he got to do anything? He’s dead. I watched you rip his throat out—” Derek let Stiles flail about while he regained his strength. He felt drained in a way that he hadn’t ever before, not even with a wolf’s bane bullet in his arm.

Derek pushed himself up carefully, trying not to put too much weight on his right arm. The gouges from Peter’s nails bled freely; maybe it was the blood loss getting to his head. A combination of whatever Lydia had blown in his face and blood loss that was making him feel so weak, so strange, so—

“Dude, are you okay? Lydia’s SOS didn’t say anything other than that you were in trouble, but you look like you’re going to pass out again— and you’re not healing. Why aren’t you healing?” 

The panic was back in his voice, and it still didn’t feel right, without the smell and taste of it. Derek couldn’t tell if he was feeling panic or concern or anger or confusion. He couldn’t tell, because it felt as though he was looking at everything with a damp cloth over his face, unable to breathe in the scents of the world or see the colours of it beyond a dull blur.

“Peter... did something to Lydia. I don’t really know what—” Derek took another deep breath, scenting the air for something familiar to calm his racing heart, but unable to find even the barest trace of his mother’s perfume amongst the ashes. “She resurrected him.”

“Resurrected? _Resurrected?_ Oh my god, this is so not happening. This is not real life. Am I dreaming? Not that I dream about you, or anything—”

Derek grabbed for Stiles’ sleeve and missed it by several inches. Stiles had to stop talking and grab him by the arms to steady him, the both of them still sitting on the dirty, weather-worn floor. 

“How did she resurrect him? How is that possible? How—”

“I don’t know, okay! I just don’t— he used my blood, maybe—” He was practically wheezing, the panic rising up in his throat like bile, his heart pounding with terror as he realized what his symptoms sounded like. But no, it isn’t possible—

Suddenly Stiles was holding his injured arm, pressing his fingers around the five unmistakable claw marks. Derek made a noise he won’t ever admit to and tried to jerk his arm away, but he barely mustered the strength to move it at all. Stiles held fast, seemingly engrossed in looking at the carnage. 

“Your Uncle did this to you,” he said, looking up to meet Derek’s eyes. “And it isn’t healing. But an Alpha can heal from a wound inflicted by another Alpha, right?” Derek nodded once, jerkily, and then looked away, avoiding eye contact.

“But it’s not healing.”

“No.”

“What does that _mean_?”

Derek took yet another deep breath, trying to slow his heart rate. It felt like it was going to beat right out of his chest. He scratched human fingernails along the floor, felt splinters forcing their way under them as he tried to gather his thoughts. “It means I’m not an Alpha anymore,” he said quietly, almost disbelievingly, still refusing to meet Stiles’ searching eyes. He barely heard Stiles’ surprised intake of breath and couldn't hear the stutter of his heart at all, though he knew that he should. 

“Can he do that? Can he... _demote_ you?”

“He did more than that,” Derek breathed, and his voice wavered for the first time in a long time as he finally looked up. His face was absent of the glare he carried like a shield, open and honest in a way Stiles didn’t think he’d ever seen on Derek before. “I’m not a werewolf anymore.”

Stiles dropped Derek’s arm. For a moment, he opened and closed his mouth like he didn’t know what to say, like what had already been said had short-circuited his brain. Derek reached out and put a very human hand on Stiles’ very human knee. 

“I can’t feel the others anymore,” he said, knowing that the hollow feeling in his chest and the panicked thrumming of his heart is at the loss of his pack. “Stiles, I can’t feel the _pack_ anymore.” His voice actually _cracked_ on the word “pack,” and suddenly Stiles’ hand was covering his own, pressing their fingers together almost unconsciously.

“What are we going to do?” Stiles answered, the panic replaced by the hard resolve and infallible logic that often overtook him in times of danger and stress. “How do we fix this?”

Derek shook his head. “I don’t know.” He looked down at their joined hands, felt Stiles’ pulse through his fingers and longed to be able to hear it again as clearly as he always had before. “I don’t know what to do.”

“We’ll think of something,” Stiles said confidently, and Derek couldn’t tell whether or not he was putting on a brave face and a lie or whether he actually believed it. “There’s got to be something. Come on.” He let Derek’s hand fall from his and then stood, offering a hand to his weakened companion. “Let’s go back to my place. We can’t stay here. That’s just asking for trouble.”

Derek reached up and took the hand offered to him. He was only human, after all.


	2. I used to hear it all so loud

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for all the positive feedback! As always, mistakes are my own and I would appreciate them being pointed out if you see them.

The weakness in his limbs ebbed during the ride to the former Sherriff’s house, but Derek continued to lean against the passenger’s side window for the length of the trip. His mind raced with the implications of what had happened, breathing heavily through his nose in search of some familiar scent. 

Everything looked different, calmer, and almost _softer_ through the eyes of a human. Derek couldn’t even be sure they were driving through the same Beacon Hills he had always known. How could he tell if they were passing the Jeffersons’ house if he couldn’t smell the aroma of apple pie that always wafted from their kitchen? How could he know if Isaac and Jackson’s street was around the corner without scenting their individual odours? The houses looked unfamiliar, too similar to each other to pick out individual addresses in the darkness. Even the roads looked smoother without his enhanced vision picking out every loose stone and crevice and pothole. 

“We’re here,” Stiles announced as he pulled into a driveway that looked like every other driveway they’d passed. Derek recognised the Sherriff’s house, of course he did, but he hadn’t realized they were there until Stiles spoke up. It was more than disconcerting. It was terrifying.

“I have no idea how to be human,” was the first thing out of his mouth as the jeep shuddered to a stop outside of the Stilinski’s. 

“...It’s really not that hard?” Stiles offered, trying to sound encouraging and mostly failing. “It’s just like being a werewolf, except that you can’t heal very fast or smell other people’s emotions.”

“It’s like being blind and deaf.” Derek had always thought it would be so much simpler if he’d been born this way, without the burden he’d inherited, but he couldn’t even take an hour of it. He would do anything to get his burden back.

Stiles blinked. “I’m going to try not to take that as an insult. I guess if you’ve never known anything better, it doesn’t seem as bad. This is how most people experience the world, you know. Not everyone grows up with super werewolf powers.”

Derek’s hand was on the door handle and his fingers tightened against it, turning his knuckles white. He could have broken it off in his hand a few hours ago. Now he felt his fingers cramp and burn at the strain. “It’s all I’ve ever known.”

There was silence in the jeep for all of five seconds before Stiles starting tapping his fingers in an aimless rhythm against the steering wheel, obviously restless. Or maybe just uncomfortable. It wasn’t like Derek could tell with any kind of accuracy anymore. 

“My dad’s home. I didn’t think this through very well. I forgot he wouldn’t be at work.” Stiles chewed on his bottom lip in contemplation. “Are you up to doing your wall-climbing, window-entering routine?”

Derek eyed the wall he could usually scale with ease, looking for handholds big enough for clumsy human fingers rather than precision claws. He sighed, his little huff of breath fogging the jeep’s window. “I could try. No promises.”

“No. Scrap that. If you fall and break your neck, it won’t heal. Crap, this human thing is inconvenient.”

Derek gave Stiles a side-eye at that comment, raising one eyebrow delicately.

“I meant for you, obviously. It works on _me._ ” Stiles chuckled nervously and rubbed the back of his neck. “Front door it is, then. Just follow close behind me, and be... stealthy.”

“Stealthy?”

“Just stay quiet. He’s probably already in bed.”

Mr. Stilinski was not already in bed. Stiles stopped abruptly halfway down their alleyway kitchen and put a hand behind him to stop Derek from walking into him. The former Sherriff was seated at their little dining room table, files strewn about him haphazardly. It was a familiar sight, but not the one Stiles had been hoping for.

“Make a dash for the stairs when I give you the signal,” Stiles said under his breath, so quietly Derek almost missed it. A werewolf would have been able to hear it from across the room. But a werewolf Derek was no longer, and even standing right next to him, the words were almost lost.

Derek gave a little nod that Stiles didn’t acknowledge, instead stomping rather noisily into the dining room to stand at his father’s shoulder. “You’re still on the case?” Stiles asked, keeping his voice surprisingly even. He shifted around a little from foot to foot, trying to find the best place to block his father’s view of the kitchen entryway. 

“Not officially,” was Mr. Stilinski’s curt reply. He pushed his reading glasses a little farther up his nose and pulling a file towards him. “But I’m no use sitting around doing nothing. I figured I might as well see this one through to completion.”

“Right,” Stiles said, bobbing his head. Then he reached across the table as if to grab at one of the many photographs, and his father swatted his hand away. Derek missed some of what happened next, because Stiles shot him a rather unsubtle thumbs up behind his back.

He heard the sound of papers sliding off the table and the former Sherriff’s annoyed sigh, as well as Stiles’ loud and hurried apologies, which did their job of covering his footsteps as he hurried past the doorway. Stiles had obviously pretended to "accidentally" knock everything off the table— a great feat even for the clumsiest of teenagers— and was now on his hands and knees with his father gathering the evidence back up. 

Derek crept upstairs while the commotion continued, keeping to the edge of the stairs to avoid any creaking steps. He chose the door that he knew led to Stiles’ bedroom and sat down in his desk chair, rubbing a hand over his face. He’d made far too much noise coming up the stairs. Being “stealthy” in a clunky human body was exhausting.

Stiles made his way upstairs several minutes later, looking self-satisfied and pleased. He dropped down onto his bed dramatically and then punched the air with spastic movements. “That was far more nerve-wracking than it ought to have been,” he groaned at last, out of breath and giddy sounding. 

It took him only a moment to get over it, though, sitting up and forcing a serious expression onto his face. “So you’re human.”

“It would appear that way, yes,” Derek answered tersely, trying not to grind his teeth. Stiles had a habit of stating the obvious that would never cease to get on his nerves.

“And Lydia resurrected your Uncle.”

“Yes.”

Stiles scratched at his chin absently, staring off into space. “Okay. Why don’t we start from the beginning so that this makes some kind of sense? You tell me what happened on your end and I’ll tell you what happened on mine, because Lydia’s been up to all kinds of trouble tonight.”

Derek briskly explained the events of the evening, leaving out anything unimportant to the narrative. The Pack would be safe with Isaac in charge for the rest of the night, but the loss of their Alpha was probably hitting them hard. The only good thing about that was that their power decreased without him, so they wouldn’t be as inclined to hurt themselves or anyone else. 

“Before Lydia went into her trance and blew wolf’s bane in your face, she drugged the punch at her party,” Stiles started up almost immediately after Derek had finished. “Maybe to keep Scott and I occupied? Everyone was tripping balls, it was awful. Hallucinations, the whole bit. Then someone threw Matt in the pool, and Jackson had to pull him out because he couldn’t swim.”

Derek perked up a little, his eyes narrowing. “So you think Matt controls the Kanima?” 

Stiles nodded. “It’s gotta be him. Everything fits. You know, except the whole ‘let’s kill the swim team!’ thing he has going on, but I’m sure there’s an explanation for that. Even Isaac’s dad fits into it. But he has to have motive. There’s gotta be something we’re missing.”

“One more question,” Derek asked, steepling his fingers together and leaning his chin on them.

“Did I leave something out?”

“Yes. Who’s Matt?”

\--

Their info-sharing session had run into the early morning by the time Stiles said it was too late to continue bouncing ideas off each other. His yawning was becoming a near-constant distraction, and he was no longer coming up with any good ideas or remembering any pertinent details.

“My brain is seriously going to explode if I have to use it any more. Anything we do will have to wait until morning anyway— are you cool with sleeping on the floor? I can get you some blankets and stuff.” So that was the end of that. 

Derek didn’t want to admit that he was feeling the same way, with his eyelids feeling heavy and what little he had left of his senses dulling with fatigue. He let Stiles make up a bed for him on the floor and curled up in it gratefully, knowing he was hidden between Stiles’ bed and the wall should Mr. Stilinski poke his head in the door to check on his son. 

A car passed under Stiles’ window. Derek only knew because the headlights briefly lighted the window and left a pattern of light on the ceiling where it slipped through the blinds. He thought he heard the distant sound of the wheels on the pavement, but it could have just been wistful thinking, it was so soft.

New York seemed like a distant memory, with its noisiness at all times of the day and night. The horns honking and the wind howling and his sister’s sleep-talking on the other side of their small apartment; Mr. Collins on the second floor snoring, his wife banging around in the cupboard looking for where he’d hid the cookies; the baby in 3C waking up at all hours to cry for food or attention. Or, if he thought back further, the houseful of siblings and cousins and family friends that so often inhabited the Hale house before the fire, the sound of all their breathing and snoring and nightmares and babies crying and soothing lullabies.

“Stiles?” Derek asked after they had both been settled in their respective beds. Stiles’ breathing had just started to even out; Derek was glad he could hear that, at least. 

“Yeah?” Stiles said back in a whisper, barely breaking the silence. 

“It’s too quiet.” 

Derek heard what could have been a huff of laughter from his companion. “Go to sleep, Derek.” 

Derek continued to stare up at the ceiling long after Stiles had fallen asleep, his senses on high alert. He wouldn’t be able to hear a threat approaching, smell his Uncle if he came within scenting distance, hear one of his wolves howl for assistance. His heart raced, his palms sweated. He was weak now, useless. A part of him was missing, and the absence of it ached more than it had any right to.

But there was a calm, too. The anger in him didn’t burn as bright; the lust for blood was gone completely. Being human made him weak, that was true. But the weak were so often of stronger mind and soul.

The creaks of the house settling for the night were calming distractions from the silence. The faint smell of detergent coming off the fresh sheets Stiles’ had given him was pleasant. The clock in the hallway ticked distantly in time with his heart. And, finally, after what felt like hours, the sounds of Stiles’ breathing lulled him to sleep.


End file.
